Wound treatment is a crucial part of healthcare. Various methods and devices have been developed to improve the quality of care that may be provided in wound treatment and the healing process. Among these approaches are the application of negative pressure and use of oxygen.
Negative pressure wound treatment (NPWT), the process of applying a vacuum to a wound, is an accepted and established modality of treating a variety of wound types. The devices on the market today principally include four components: a mechanical suction pump, a dressing (foam or gauze) which interfaces with the wound bed, a cover dressing to create a seal over the wound, and an exudate collection canister. The pumps for these NPWT systems come in a variety of shapes and sizes, as do the dressing kits and canisters. However, all NPWT systems do the same fundamental thing: create a vacuum or “negative pressure” environment at the wound site, while simultaneously extracting/sucking the exudate from the wound.
In addition, the used of oxygen in wound healing is also an accepted and established modality of treating a variety of wound types. However, the manner by which oxygen is delivered to the wound site varies greatly. Modalities for delivering oxygen to the wound site range from: full body hyperbaric chambers, to segmental (limb) hyperbaric chambers, to electro chemical dressing kits, to portable/wearable oxygen generating devices which use fuel cell technology to deliver micro doses of pure oxygen to the wound site under the dressing cover.
The benefits of the negative pressure treatment include, among others, improving blood flow to the wound site and flattening the wound bed to facilitate healing. On the other hand, applying oxygen to the wound site helps to improve cell metabolism and regeneration, thus enhancing the capacity to heal. These two approaches utilize non-overlapping mechanisms and may have combined effects that are more significant than each one alone. The current invention discloses a device and related methods to apply negative pressure and oxygen to the wounds in an alternating and cycling manner, further improving the wound healing process.
In summary, various devices are known in the art, but their structures are distinctively different from the current invention. Moreover, the other inventions fail to address all of the problems solved by the invention described herein. One embodiment of this invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings and will be described in more detail herein below.